Investor's Corner

Tesla wins FTC approval to buy SolarCity in $2.6 billion deal

Elon Musk can breathe a temporary sigh of relief as he moves Tesla forward on the company’s goal of acquiring SolarCity. In an announcement made by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today, Tesla Motors Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) has won U.S. antitrust approval to purchase America’s largest solar provider, SolarCity Corp (Nasdaq: SCTY).

The deal that would merge Tesla with SolarCity was on a FTC listing of proposed transactions that were rewarded “early termination” from the government.

Tesla announced its proposal to buy SolarCity on August 1 as part of the company’s efforts to consolidate product, service and operations in its mission to become a leading sustainable energy and transportation company. In a conference call to investor’s earlier this month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Chairman to SolarCity told investors that the deal would ultimately unify Tesla’s strategy to transition to sustainable energy. And part of that execution involves the development of products for sustainable energy production, in this case SolarCity solar panels, energy storage (Tesla Powerwall and Powerpack), and transportation (Tesla fleet of vehicles). Musk believes that the combination of both companies can have the potential to create a trillion dollar company.

Despite the positive news from today’s FTC announcement, there was little impact on each company’s respective stock price. Tesla shares remained flat while SolarCity shares rose by 3 cents (+.13%) on Thursday.

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